


And if you were good enough, maybe, Harry would still be alive.

by orphan_account



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Abuse, Angst, Bad Parenting, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Hurt/Comfort, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, M/M, Malfoy Manor, Nightmares, Physical Abuse, Post-Battle of Hogwarts, Post-Hogwarts, Post-War, Scars, draco falling apart, sorry i had to, would-be domestic, yes the creature is a Hinkypunk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-16
Updated: 2019-12-16
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:33:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21815950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Some nights are better than others, but sometimes you have to walk through a dream forest and fight very real nightmares.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Kudos: 55





	And if you were good enough, maybe, Harry would still be alive.

The forest was a silky gray. Pinetrees stretched high into the dark, moist sky. The boy was lying on the ground, looking up the yellow grass. There was no one next to him, and he didn’t remember how he got there; so he got up and looked around. Draco couldn’t see further than a few meters—his feet were clouded with fog, and the air felt dense with a spice of upcoming thunder, and the trees stood tall. 

He thought it was weird.

The forest reminded him of the Forbidden Forest, the one on the school grounds, but the last time he’s been there was during the Battle of Hogwarts. Draco was raising his eyes to the sky again, and it was gray but it wasn’t the right gray—wasn’t the midnight or morning gray.  _ Not the battle, then,  _ he thought. 

Draco stepped forward, and the Forest parted in front of him; there was a clearing mere feet away from where he was standing, and he rushed towards it. The air lay heavy with smells but the smells weren’t the usual forest smells he was used to—the Forest reeked of cold and mustiness as if no one’s been there in a very long time. The air lay stale, and moving through it was difficult.

He saw a bridge. A short stone bridge over what must have been a river before. Draco looked around, and the place reminded him of the park they frequented when he was little.  _ Very little _ , he told himself. Before he learned how to fly a broom, even before he ever showed any signs of magic, mother used to bring him here, and he would run around and laugh, and she would play with him all day long, and it felt like they never had to go back.

He stopped the train of thought abruptly, choking on a sharp intake of breath. Where was she now? He didn’t know what time it was, couldn’t quite place it, and there was no one around the park to ask for it. She could’ve been dead. She could’ve been under trial. She could’ve been held captive in Azkaban for war crimes.  _ And she was guilty,  _ Draco thought.  _ And so am I _ .

The park fell apart, as would memories in Dumbledore’s Pensieve, flying apart in long gray threads. The room he found himself in was full of ghosts—or so he thought at first. White, glowing orbs stood in endless rows, towering one above the other into the high black ceiling. He heard laughter and jerked for his wand—it wasn’t there. It stopped abruptly, as if listening cautiously, and seemed to intensify as it moved towards him.

Draco stumbled backwards, walked onto a shelf with orbs, and froze. Cornered between high laughter coming from somewhere very close and dark, misty whispers from inside the orbs, he looked around warily. There was a speck of light.  Jumping around a spot on the floor, it was warmer than the glowing from the orbs, and so it felt safer, and Draco followed it, still looking around suspiciously.

He walked slow, and as the light moved up, he had to speed up as well. The laughter grew louder, turning into shrieking in a moment, so loud Draco had to cover his ears.

He could’ve blinked because when he opened his eyes again, the light was gone. He lowered his hands and looked around, frantically searching for something he’d find familiar, but all was dark and covered in black, thick smog. He suddenly felt very tired—Draco tried to move his legs, and they wouldn’t give, he fought a yawn, eyelids heavy with dreaded sleepiness.  _ Maybe, I just stay here?  _ He wondered, head falling.

That’s when he heard it: voices, from all over the years, washing over him.

The moment Slytherin won the House Cup,

The moment his father told him to behave himself before his first time on Hogwarts Express,

The moment he couldn’t kill Dumbledore,

The moment his mother asked him to join the Death Eaters at the battlefield at Hogwarts,

The moment the fire roared in the Room of Requirement,

The moment he lost his first Snitch,

The moment he took the Mark,

The moment he was assigned Slytherin,

The moment Harry Potter refused his friendship.

He gasped, suddenly short on air. The slue, thick on his legs, has spread up his body, covering his waist and torso, and climbing up by the side of his neck. His arms locked to his body, he couldn’t move—and frankly, didn’t quite want to—he could only stretch his neck, to keep his face away from the letch for as long as he could.

“Draco.” His mother called him. “Draco. Draco.”

He fought to get out of the gel, covering him all, but the more he fought, the thicker the gel seemed to strip his body of movement. He had to move, had to go, his mother was calling him…

It took him some time to realize. She wasn’t calling him--she was calling to him. He tried to open his mouth to respond, and he couldn’t.

“Draco Malfoy!” He flinched as his father roared. He froze, not daring to make a sound, insides shivering. “Get right here, you nasty piece of…” Draco closed his eyes.

_ He’s in Azkaban, he can’t be here, he cannot be here. _

He let out a shuddered breath.

“Don’t you dare cry on me, you little…!”

_ He is a murderer. _

“Malfoys don’t cry, Draco!” He heard a distant banging of a rod.

_ A war criminal.  _

“As you are.” The tone seemed to change significantly.

_ He’s in Azkaban. _

“As you’ll be soon enough.” Draco thought it sounded so calm and powerful now because it knew something he didn't. He couldn't be sure.

Draco opened his eyes—the bog was gone. He stood in a dark room, that he recognized as a guest room of the Malfoy Manor, his father in front of him. He stood tall, his back rigid, black robes wrinkle-less and the walking stick that he usually carried with him in his hand. Draco wanted to flinch, but instead, he straightened his shoulders, raising his head high, and looked the man straight in the eye.

“I see you lost all shame in my absence,” the voice came from everywhere, and yet Lucius didn’t open the mouth. “I’ll have to teach you a lesson…”

_ You don’t have power over me anymore,  _ Draco thought.

“Do I, now?” A nasty sneer escaped his lips. “I bet you wouldn’t be so disrespectful after a good beating.” He stepped forward, raising the stick, and Draco had to take a step back. How was that possible? He tried to lock his mind off. “If you run, it’s only going to be worse, Draco…” A cruel grin wide on his face, the man seemed to grow in size as he walked towards the boy. His shoulders growing bigger, his shadow darker.

The Mark on Draco’s hand vibrated fiercely on his hand but he dared not touch it to not attract any more attention to himself.

“It is your fault the Dark Lord is gone, Draco…” The voice seemed to pierce him from every direction—low, wicked, one he’d kill to never hear again. The voice seemed to know exactly what's been bothering him. “Plotting against your own family, Draco, how low… You were weak enough to kill that useless excuse for a wizard, Dumbledore, you’ll never raise a wand on your own family,” Lucius laughed—and then disappeared, but the voice kept coming from everywhere. It was falling on him from above, raining over his shoulders as would his father’s walking stick. It was coming from the sides, hurting his ribs to the point of almost breaking them, leaving bruise over bruise over bruise over his Sectumsempra scars over his old  _ family  _ scars. 

_ You don’t know that _ , he thought.  _ You don’t even know me! _

“Is that so, Draco? You think your father didn’t pay poor little Draco enough attention?” The room spun around him as the words fell harder and harder down on him. In the dark of the smudged walls, he could see every single time he ever got told off, lectured, or punished by his father. “Wasn’t that enough attention for you, Draco? Did you want more?”

He kept quiet. He wanted to close his eyes but his body wouldn’t listen to him. He wanted to leave the room, to run away, to follow the lights again, to be back in the park, to be back in the Forest, to be back…

But Malfoys didn’t run.  _ Or did they? _

“Maybe, that’s why you were acting out in front of the Dark Lord?”

He tried to think of something else. 

“Don’t you dare block me out!” He yelled, and with the yell came the rod, falling over his skin times and times again, breaking it. “Listen to me when I’m talking to you!” 

Draco caught his eye in the mirror—he wasn’t himself anymore. Or, he was, but he was way younger than he remembered. A six, or maybe a five, year old boy looked at him from the other side of the glass, huge scared eyes, a bruise barely covered by the collar of his white shirt, and straight back. Hands, trembling just barely, hovering over his stomach. Draco's own stomach turned in horror and pity.

“That’s right. Maybe, if you behaved yourself, everything would’ve been different.”

_ Could that be true? Would things really be different?  _ Draco looked at the boy—looked at himself—and couldn’t believe that things could be different. The boy didn’t own Lucius anything. The boy didn’t have to be anything. 

He was so young, he couldn’t and shouldn’t have been living up to any standards his family set for him. His father set for him.

“Maybe, you would have killed Dumbledore.”

Draco looked in the eyes of his reflection and fought so hard to not lower them. 

“Maybe, you wouldn’t have to be punished.”

Draco saw tears welling up in his own eyes, and fought violently to keep them at bay. He couldn’t cry in front of his father.  _ Malfoys didn’t cry _ .

“Maybe, you wouldn’t have been rejected by Harry Potter.”

The voice seemed to know exactly where to hit. Draco felt his heart clench, his stomach tremble, and his arms fall. Maybe, he wouldn’t have been. Maybe, it could have all been different.

Sharp pain blossomed on this lower back, making him whimper and straighten it harder.

Maybe, if he were the perfect heir his parents always wanted him to be, everything would have been different. Maybe, he wasn’t deserving of their name.

Maybe, it was his fault.

Maybe, everything has gone wrong because of him, and surely, the punishment must help him get better, stronger and smarter, and not repeat the mistakes next time.

_ Will there even be a next time now?  _ A tear has escaped his eyelashes, running down his cheek, and he made a swift move to rub it off with his sleeve.

Another bruise flowered on his forearm.

“If you were good enough, you would have had everything you wished for.” Draco couldn’t stop the tears now. “If you were good enough, maybe everything would have been the way you wanted it." The voice rocked around him. "The way we all wanted it.” He only wanted to cover his ears, and for his father to finish and leave him to fall apart alone. “And if you were good enough, maybe, Harry Potter would still be alive.”

Draco’s eyes shot open, he felt himself fall on his knees, crying out loud. His heart throbbing painfully, the Mark burning on his arm as he failed to muffle the sobbing behind the hands clenched tightly over his mouth.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, I never meant to fail everyone…” He whispered, shedding his pain and bitterness through the tears.

“Draco!” 

A warm hand touched his, wrapping around it before Draco could pull away.

“No, please, don’t touch me…”

The hand disappeared immediately, and Draco whimpered weakly.

“Hush, hey, Draco… It’s me, you’re okay,” he didn’t dare turn around but the person circled him himself, propping down in front of him. Harry radiated warmth, and his eyes were warm, too, filled with concern and love. “I’m here. It was just a nightmare, okay?”

He couldn’t look Harry in the eye and he couldn’t stop crying but he did lean into the touch, and Harry embraced him instantly, holding him tightly and rocking carefully from side to side.

“You’re okay.”

“It’s all my fault, everything that… that has- has happened, it’s all me…”

“Shh, nothing is your fault, beautiful.” The word made Draco shudder and draw an unstable breath in, crying even harder now.

Harry’s lips were touching his forehead. He seemed to be placing kiss after kiss after kiss over it. One arm caressing the small of his back, the other—hugging his neck carefully. Harry’s legs propped up wide around Draco’s body so that he could shelter him from the world outside.

“You’re okay, Draco.” He couldn't say he believed it, but it did sound so... right and trustworthy. “You’re  _ good _ , Draco. Nothing is going to change that, you hear me?” Harry pressed a long kiss to his temple as Draco nodded his head. “And you deserve everything in the world for being an amazing person that you are, okay?” He couldn’t have waited long enough for the second nod, for it never came, but even that was okay with Harry.

Draco listening to him. Draco trusting him enough to maybe consider his words to be right.

“Good…” He kissed him again.

And, without breaking the embrace, he lowered them carefully back in the sheets, tugging the blanket along with them. Harry kept one of his arms around Draco as he covered them head to toe with it, eyes focused on Draco and Draco alone. The boy didn’t seem to be in any way ready to go back to sleep—eyes opened and empty, staring right in front of him.

But that was okay, too.

Harry lay down beside him and didn’t stop kissing him until Draco talked. He cried more, they both cried, and they talked. Harry would reassure him, and then Draco would stop apologizing, and at the crack of dawn, they would both drift off to sleep; Draco tightly wrapped around Harry’s warm body, the boy’s arms around him.

**Author's Note:**

> hiii! 
> 
> i was casually watching spider-man far from home when That Scene Happened, and i just ?? had to ?? write drarry on it, ya know, how one does )  
> hope you liked it, hope i didn't scare you as much as Lucius scarred Draco (:
> 
> adieu <3


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